Author: L.J. LaBree

Happy Independence Day, everyone!

I know, I know, publishing two blog pieces in one day is not my usual thing, but I wanted to wish you all a happy strange holiday we’re all experiencing.

Normally, my family would spend this holiday either attending one of the many parades held here in Maine, go out to eat in one of our favorite local mom-and-pop restaurants, or relax by the ocean on one of the dozens of beaches our state has to offer.

But that was before Covid.

This Fourth of July, however, we’ve decided to do things a little differently. Because most parades and firework showings have been cancelled, we felt it would be better, and safer, for us to stay home and putter around the house. Well, Mom had to work today, but Dad and I stayed home.

While he was out in the garage working on fixing the four-wheeler, I was doing my best at staying productive. That included completing a load of laundry, washing dishes, sweeping floors, and vacuuming couches and stair rugs.

But, also while I was cleaning and making sure the house was in good condition, I started thinking about the people who couldn’t celebrate this holiday with their families. I’m not just talking about all of the doctors, nurses, EMT’s, hospital receptionists, and custodians who take care of our family members sick with Covid, though they all should definitely be thought of! Without them, the death count would be through the roof!

I’m also including those who were hurt by others’ ignorance and prejudice. The people who’s lives were taken in excessive force, just because of a factor they have no control of.

I’m talking about Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Atatiana Jefferson, Ahmed Arbery, Elijah McClain, Stephon Clark, Botham Jean, and countless others before them. You can get technical if you so desire, but point blank: these people died because of the pigment of their skin. That very same pigment where I’ve seen tons of white people slather oils and other gross what-not onto their skin, lay themselves under a hot sun so they can look like a baked potato. Potatoes are for eating, not fashion advice.

It’s 2020, folks.

We shouldn’t be screeching slurs at one another, believing one skin tone is better than another. We shouldn’t be hating one another based on prejudices passed down from generation to generation that make absolutely no sense.

If this is what we’re doing, then we need to take a step back an reevaluate ourselves.

There’s a saying I absolutely love from George Santayana: “Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.”

And you know what? I’m starting to see reruns happen in real life. Reruns should be happening to quality TV shows, not in the real world.

Thank you for letting me get through my rant. If I’ve lost a couple followers, then please know I understand, but this is how I feel. People are people, regardless of how they look. Treat everyone you meet with kindness. You never know what demons they’re fighting on the inside, or what kind of day they’re having.

I hope you all have a wonderful, safe, and healthy Fourth of July!

I’ve been wanting a new laptop for quite some time now.

The one I currently have, a Lenovo 2-in-1 laptop that converts into a tablet, is great and all, but there’s much to be desired recently.

For instance, the loading time for web pages has topped three minutes, which means if I want to change the page or click on a link, I have enough time to set up a cup of tea, fold an entire dryer load of laundry, and wash maybe one dish before all of the contents to be fully loaded. Videos tend to buffer every two minutes, oftentimes needing me to wait at least four to watch three minutes’ worth of content, and a lot of the times the keys get stuck, leaving words such as ‘mmminutes’ or ‘deteeerrrnment’ for me to grumble about and correct.

Sometimes I have to wonder if there just isn’t enough power for that little Lenovo – whom I have affectionately called Hector – to do anything more than respond to emails, write short essays, or switch into tablet-mode to read an online book.

To those of you who immediately pipe up “but Leah, you don’t like to read using tablets to read books!” Yeah, yeah, I still don’t. I like my physical ink-paper-and-glue books better. But reading is reading! Sometimes you must do what you can to keep your brain entertained.

Seeing as this Pandemic is still kicking everyone’s tuckus, and I probably have a much better time of becoming a Virtual Assistant and working from home, I knew Hector wouldn’t make the cut. I like to think of him as one of those kids you pick next to last on Dodgeball Day, but he’s a nice enough kid, so you pick him on your team to make him feel at least somewhat loved.

So, I decided to invest in a newer, more powerful, laptop.

And boy-oh-boy did I choose one!

My new laptop is an HP Pavilion Gaming-grade 15-Inch Laptop, with an Intel Core i5-9300H, NVIDIA including a GeForce GTX 1650, 12GB of bada** RAM, 500GB of Hard Drive Space, and features Windows 10.

What does all of that mean? Honestly, I have no clue.

What I do understand, however, is this puppy has 12GB of Ram compared to Hector’s 4, has FOUR core processors (Hector may either have one or two, not sure), and has plenty of space in her hard drive for me to write to my heart’s content. She also has three – count ‘em! – three ­– working USB ports compared to his only one! (Okay, confession: I accidentally broke one of his USB ports during a really late night of working; I thought it was the plugin for the charger. In my defense, the charger port and USB port are literally the same size and shape – something I didn’t like from the get-go for Hector.)

I also know this computer has been compared to Alienware – Amazon.com shows the two together as a comparison tool – and has a higher rating than the $1,700 professional-grade gaming laptop. Plus, this beauty only cost around the $920 range.

There are only two times where Hector has beaten this beauty. One is in the Hard Drive space – he technically has a whole Terabyte. That terabyte hard drive was put in at a later date because he came with a faulty hard drive, and I was too poor to buy any warranties when I first bought him.

The second is, while Hector has a touchscreen, which often proves useful when his mouse isn’t moving as fast as I would like, the new computer has a regular, non-touchy screen. But that’s something I’m not worried about right now. Personally, having a touchscreen is nice and all, but I’m willing to give up that perk if it means gaining speed and power.

Point is, this new laptop is a beautiful green-and-black beast! She’s gorgeous! She can definitely do what I need her to do! I shall name her… Boudica.

If you get the reference, kudos to you!

Of course, I’ll still be keeping Hector. He still has enough fight in him to do easy stuff. He’ll be great to do light travelling and help me answer emails and write stories.

He just doesn’t have to worry about doing any heavy lifting anymore. Boudica can take care of that.

My bedroom is probably one of my favorite places to be.

One reason is obvious: it’s the spot where my bed is. Bed equals sleep. Sleep equals a relatively happy and peppy Leah. This is the Leah people want to hang around with.

It isn’t a big room, but it is shaped like a backwards L, which is what I’ve always liked.

The walls used to be a soft lilac purple (back from my princess obsession days), but now they scream a vibrant electric lime-green. I chose that color back before I went into high school, because… well… actually, I don’t remember why I chose that color specifically, but I do remember I liked it – and I still do! Though if I had a choice, I would have these really cool walls that would automatically change color with the seasons – bright lime-green for Summer, Pumpkin-orange for Fall, a soft Evergreen-green for Winter, and Lilac-purple for Spring. Of course, there isn’t such an invention yet, but hey, a girl can dream.

It’s also one of the only rooms with the giant lilac bush right underneath it, so when the flowers bloom, my room is filled with the relaxing sweet smell of springtime and purple. (In case you were wondering, the other room is the laundry room.)

But there’s one thing about my room I don’t like: the windows.

Let me explain.

The windows themselves are relatively new, with neat window panes that fold out so I can clean both sides of the glass, and locks that never stick or get rusted. One window – the one closest to the foot of my bed – has a screen on it. It’s great, because not only does it keep out the bugs that like to feast upon my blood in the dead of night, but it also allows my cat Spooky to sit on the sill without fear of falling out and landing hard on the deck railing below.

The other window does not have this screen. It’s supposed to, but my dad decided he would take it out so he could sneak in, gently open the pane, and aim his gun at the grey squirrels and the occasional raccoon who seem to think the bird feeders were made for them.

There was one occasion where I did not know this window had no screen – Binx (bless his grumpy old man soul), let me know when he leaped onto the sill, missed, and landed on his poor little belly, hanging halfway out the window like a rag doll and screaming like a miniature banshee. He was fine shortly after though. He quickly scrambled back inside and mewed at me with his rusty Mrrrrawwwh, as if to say, “Ma! What happened to the screen?!”

Now let me fill you in on a certain little tidbit: the birds around my parents’ house aren’t always the brightest. One species that comes to mind are the chickadees. They are certainly the bravest, (measuring their courage to how close they come to us humans, of course) but their mentality to windows remind me of mosquitos to bug-zappers.

One day, it was hotter than an egg on a sidewalk outside, and I just wanted to have as much of the tiny breeze meandering outside in my room as possible. So, I opened both windows. Not five minutes later, I was regretting my mistake.

One of the chickadees must have seen the screenless window open and thought, “oooh, a new place for me to explore!”

Next thing I knew, the sounds of furious flapping and high shrilled squawking filled my room. I turned just in time to see one of the little black, grey and white daredevils zipping about my room, slamming against walls, and trying so hard to get back out.

I didn’t have any nets, and I’m pretty sure one of the cats had heard him.

Thankfully, this is not the first time I’ve had to catch a bird bare-handed. I’m sure the situation must have looked comical, me jumping and crashing into my furniture and crap-filled boxes, waving my arms hysterically around my head, herding a tiny little critter into a corner so I could catch him. But at the time, I was more worried about one of the cats making a snack out of him.

I couldn’t tell you how long it took to catch the dumb bird. I can tell you, however, what it feels like to have your fingers pecked at and bitten when you finally close your hand around the damned thing. Imagine having a small pair of needle-nosed pliers gently squeezing the skin between your fingers and tapping your knuckle – it doesn’t draw any blood, but boy is it annoying!

The bird’s fine if you’re wondering. He flew right to the lilac tree and proceeded to yell at me for a few minutes. He flew away eventually once he had his fill of yelling. I like to imagine he was swearing at me and threatening to call the manager for unnecessary feather ruffling and lack of seeds.

It would be obvious for me to say job hunting is hard.

No one would argue with me there. If anyone did, I would personally like to meet this person and ask them to tell me how it’s properly done. And not tell me in generalist terms, either. I want to know the nitty-gritty, pinpoint, down to the last nanosecond detail as to how they found a job so easily.

I’ve had plenty of interviews, both good and bad. I’ve had interviewers tell me they were impressed with my resume and my skills, and yet, I haven’t gotten a solid “we’re willing to hire you because we’re so impressed with you!”

Most of the time, I can pinpoint right when I’ve lost them – my current location.

In the last four or five interviews, the person sitting before me has never heard of the little town of Vassalboro. It’s fine, of course. I’m used to explaining where exactly Vassalboro is – Roughly 20-25 minutes north-northeast of Augusta, our state capital. Sometimes I have to fight the urge to say, “second star to the right, and straight on till morning.”

Don’t worry, I never say that.

It’s that very moment where I finish explaining where I live, when I can see the light of hope leave the interviewer’s eyes.

You see, there aren’t a whole lot of jobs within a 20-mile radius who are willing to pay starting wages above $15. I don’t blame them for it – there may be a large population here in Central Maine, but it pales in comparison to the Southern part, including Portland, Saco, and Biddeford to name a few.

So, logically, I’ve been applying to positions in those areas, hopping someone will be willing to pay enough to allow paying for student loans, rent, and utilities, and leave enough room to pay for things like food and internet.

And that, my friends, is where I enter into the Paradox.

Thing is, Portland, which is the closest city I’ve applied to, is roughly 1 hour away from Augusta. Add 20 minutes to include where I live, and you’re looking at an almost 3-hour drive round-trip.

It isn’t a problem for me, though! I’ve done the drive before every day with Cross. Frankly, I enjoy the drive – it allows me to think and have time to prep myself for the day ahead.

However, judging by their eyes bulging slightly and their mouths drawing into a tight ‘oh’, it doesn’t seem a lot of interviewers are okay with the drive.

It brings up the debate I’ve been having with myself for some time: Should I wait to have a job before I move, or should I just move in the hopes of a job to follow?

I have a friend who did the latter – according to her, the move to Tennessee was the best decision she ever made. She was able to find a retail job within the first week, with a more college-degree centered position to come. She’s currently the happiest I’ve ever seen her.

That being said, every situation is different. My friend was able to make the move because she only had a small amount of student loans compared to mine, and she was able to put aside enough to actually make the move, whereas my purse strings have been so tight, I’ve had to replace them several times.

That was a few years ago. The purse strings are still tight, but there might be enough wriggle room to make such a move, providing Lady Luck is on my side.

Unfortunately, she rarely is. There’s a saying my family has: When it rains, it pours.

Then again, the few times I’ve taken large enough risks, things always seemed to work out in my favor. One example in mind is when I drove through a snow storm for an interview with Cross. That was a risk that paid off.

So, what do I do? Should I stay, play it safe, and continue applying with the hopes someone will see my earnestness and give me a chance?

Or should I take the big leap, make the move, and apply to any and all jobs I can find within the area? It would mean taking the Customer Service/Retail jobs at a huge cut in pay (I’m talking at least a $4 cut here), and pray I find a position closer to the writing vest I’ve studied for seven years?